Shit happens
Exclusive from The Telegraph’s John Percy:
West Ham are furious amid fears Michail Antonio has suffered a long-term injury on international duty with Jamaica.
Antonio is flying back to England for a scan as concerns grow that the forward could miss the rest of the season with damage to his medial knee ligament.
The 33-year-old went off late in the first half of Jamaica’s Concacaf Nations League quarter-final against Canada on Saturday night, and was seen limping down the tunnel.
West Ham are understood to be angry because Antonio played for more than 10 minutes after sustaining the injury, while they are also unhappy with the state of the pitch at Kingston’s Independence Park.
Antonio will return for tests and there are hopes that he may only miss up to six weeks with the injury. The worst case scenario is that Antonio could be absent for up to nine months.
Antonio has scored two goals this season and appeared in all of the club’s Premier League matches so far. He has also come on as a substitute in two of the club’s Europa League group matches so far in this campaign.
Jarrod Bowen has also returned to the club after suffering a minor knee injury on international duty with England.
Bowen is West Ham’s leading scorer and did not travel to North Macedonia with Gareth Southgate’s squad for Monday night’s game.
Southgate said: “We felt better to leave him in England so that he can get it properly assessed.
“I don’t think it’s going to be anything serious, but we just didn’t have enough time, and we wouldn’t take a risk with that player.”
More player injuries after Qatar World Cup
The blow to Antonio comes as a study found that injuries to European footballers have became more severe after the winter World Cup in Qatar last year. There has been a jump of nearly 30 per cent in the cost to clubs of having their players sit on the sidelines.
The findings come in a report by City of London insurance firm Howden Group Holdings Ltd., which said clubs in Europe’s leading five leagues suffered a €704.9 million hit from injuries last season, up from €553.6 million the previous campaign. The report calculates the cost of injuries from players’ salaries and the amount of time they are injured.
Teams in the Premier League took the biggest hit, accounting for more than 40 per cent of the cost across the five leagues. In the two months after the World Cup in Qatar, there were 49 injuries in the Premier League, more than in any other top division. Germany’s Bundesliga was second, with 46 injuries.
“The staging of a men’s World Cup in a European winter led to players facing an extra eight days on the sidelines in the second half of the season, compared to the first,” said James Burrows, Howden’s head of sport.
Injuries in October caused players to be out for 11.4 days on average, while January’s injuries led to layoffs of 19.4 days. For consistency, this comparison applied only to players named in World Cup squads.
West Ham return to league action on Saturday with a trip to Burnley.
Article link ⤵️
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/11/20/michail-antonio-west-ham-furious-injury-jamaica/
I don’t blame them. This sort of thing happens every time there’s a pointless international break.
Definitely can be seen as pointless since we just had a break. But this one the teams in concacaf are playing for births in the upcoming copa America, so I definitely get why they would all turn up for this window. Shitty that he picked up an injury but it’s the risk these players take every time they lace up
there’s a
pointlessinternational break.We can’t not have Euro and FIFA but I take your point.
I’d happily take a few more weeks of break at this point lol
Yeah this is probably the only time in my life I’ve been happy to have the international break.
Play them all at the start of the season, get them out of the way and let’s not interrupt the flow of the Premier league
“Gerard Houllier’s thoughts on the matter international football echo mine. He thinks that what the national coaches are doing is like taking the car from his garage without even asking permission. They will then use the car for ten days and abandon it in a field without any petrol left in the tank. We then have to recover it, but it is broken down. Then a month later they will come to take your car again, and for good measure you’re expected to be nice about it.” - Arsene Wenger
of all the hysterical metaphors out there this one hits hardest
Too bad Wenger’s brains are fried now
Not as much as Houlier’s, to be fair
The problem with this analogy is that the players are people not cars, they are not the personal property of their club managers. They want to play international football
Ya clubs take have even taken far more greedy positions too with players being asked to miss out on international games even of high importance.
Heres one example with roy keane.
Lets be honest, I would be surprised if all City’s ‘injured’ players don’t make a miraculous recovery for Saturday.
Neymar was also held out of Copa America Centenario by Barcelona apparently having an agreement with Brazil not to call him up.
Papa wengz has spoken!
Weren’t West Ham the only team with 0 injuries till now?
Zouma is forever nursing a knock. Not an ‘injury’ but he turns like an 18-wheeler.
Also in this one int break we have lost our 1st and second choice striker.
All we have left is Danny Ings in the worst dry spell of his life or a youth prospect. Definitely not the worst situation in the prem, but for sure we’re on a ‘woe is me’ feel right now.
actually kinda surprised to hear Danny Ings’ name again. it’s been years for me
Yeah but you could have lost your 1st choice striker, 2nd choice striker, three wingers, a handful of central midfielders, 1st choice CB, 1st choice LB. West Ham have been very lucky with injuries so far this season
If there’s one player who deserves an injury, it’s Kurt ‘cat kicker’ Zouma.
Him and Aguerd also just need replaced based on play alone. Period.
Do Zouma’s cat’s injuries not count?
What I don’t understand is how do Spanish teams assess injuries so quickly, sometimes within hours of the injury, which the PL teams take days if not weeks.
Courtios got injured in pre season, by the end of the match real Madrid has assessed the injury, similar happened with Gavi over the weekend.
Yet EPL teams takes ages
That depends on the injury too. For example, if you see somebody break his leg like Hendrik Larsson or Aaron Ramsey you just assume they will be out for at least the rest of the season, meanwhile with other injuries, like that of Timber, it’s a lot harder to say.
It was an ACL which is effectively determined with hands on testing.
Well there’s no drama in figuring things out right away.
All soft tissue injuries need to be assessed once swelling had gone down to get a full measure.
You can immediately tell what is injured, and get an idea of “bad or not bad” but that’s it.
Also by experience you know “bit of a pull there, that’s 2-3 weeks”.
English teams are probably more hesitant to put timescales on things before they’ve had the scan done after swelling has reduced.
Depends on the injury. A fully ruptured ACL is easy to diagnose and give a timescale on (essentially - out for the season). Most more minor injuries are much harder to timescale, and often need repeated scanning to see the rate of improvement.
Also (I might be wrong in this) in England the manager tends to give updates on injuries when he doesn’t really understand the full picture, whereas in other countries it’s a medical professional - at least that is something Conte complained about while at Spurs.
- at least that is something Conte complained about while at Spurs.
Might be, but Conte definitely liked to keep everyone in the dark about injuries, regardless of what he knew. He would just straight up lie or deny a players’ availability for any tactical advantage.
Interesting, maybe a tactic then
It happens. Imagine how Barca feels about Gavi’s injury. In general player are being overplayed. The game has become more physical and faster and yet players are being asked to play 2 to 3 times a week, at the highest level.
Gutted for him - seems like a decent lad, although he did seem surprisingly easy to knock over when we played them the other week… looked like a stiff breeze was enough!
Hope he recovers quickly though - bit ridiculous that straight after making another bet with Callum Wilson they’re both immediately out injured
They’re better off without him anyway
Now Moyes can’t throw him out there regardless of his form. Time to move on from Mickey anyway. He’s been dreadful this season.
“””First Time?”””” Every London cub ever
Ya but is it worse than racism?
Players need rest.
Why?
Was his annual shot on target due soon?
Shit happens. Players want to play for their country.